Wednesday, September 18, 2002

Space Now
I'm in favor of getting us off of the wonderful little rock we call Earth as soon as possible, and am therefore in favor of unlimited private exploration and exploitation of space resources.
I consider it a matter of long term species survival, and that every step towards permanent human settlement of space, starting with private ventures such as that discussed by Glenn Reynoldshere, is to be encouraged.
I hope we don't get smacked into by a massive asteroid any time soon, and I hope our much needed lancing of Imperialist Islam, or some much to be feared possible future conflict with the Chinese, doesn't end in nuclear fire.
I also hope we don't suffer some sort of awful environmental or biological disaster.
But do I give us good odds for avoiding these and other man-made or natural catastrophies of such a scope over the next 100 years?
No, and it's not driven by some apocalyptical fear, but a growing sense of how fragile our place on this globe really is. Before now we couldn't really do anything about it, but with current technology we can.
Our choice is ultimately between a vibrant, life filled existence in the stars, or the sterile Antarctic death that Sir Martin Rees would apparently prefer.
I think that our species very survival depends on our attaining a permanent toe hold in space in the next hundred years, if not sooner.
Space Now!
posted by David 9/18/2002 09:12:00 PM

Imperialist Islam

Steven DenBeste still wasn't sure of the veracity of my claim that the label "Imperialist Islam" captures the essence of what we are truly fighting:

"Update: David Mercer suggests the term Imperialist Islam. I don't know; it still doesn't seem
right, because a lot of those within the collective enemy are not imperialistic."

I hope my reply below, which I've emailed him already, is clear enough to convince him:
Ah, but the current cultural issues arise because of the Imperialist stance the Koran instructs
People of the Book to take, declaring Islam and Muslims to be superior to all other creeds/peoples...without the Imperialist attitude underlying Islam, we wouldn't have these problems with the Middle East, and the fundamentalist Islamic culture there would probably have been able to move more smoothly into the 21st century gradually.

How many in favor of the Sharia wouldn't rejoice at a return to the Caliphate, providing of course
that THEIR faction led it?

It is the past failure of Imperialist Islam that couldn't, and can't, be accepted by these
cultures, as you so eloquently argued. They have been trying to recapture its "golden years"
ever since they ended, rather than (as Mr. Peters would say) admit failure and move on.

If you could magically go back in time and edit the Imperialist edicts from the Koran,
these issues would have vanished, hence that's why I believe this is the core of the matter,
and hence that the label is correct. Remove the nostalgia for Empire, and belief in its
inevitability, and the house of nasty cards falls.

Steven Den Beste very clearly points out at Who is our enemy? that our true enemy in this war is Imperialist Islam. The problem is that the Islamic Empire ceased being economically, militarily and culturally competitive with the West over 300 years ago, and can't accept that, so they lash out at the US, the pinnacle of Western success. He also links to Ralph Peters' Seven Signs of Non-Competitive States, which is an excellent analysis of the root causes of less developed nations' failure to be competitive with Western civilization in the modern world.

It's unfortunate in the extreme that this ideology is espoused in the Koran itself, what a nasty thread for Mohammed to weave into his re-write of the Bible that is the Koran. At least the Christian addendum to the Torah preached peace.

He says many things better than I can that I've believed for quite a while, but I think I can contribute a handy label for what he's grappling to put one on with the term Imperialist Islam.

Tuesday, September 17, 2002

Geek media comes of age

I find it interesting that Instapundit lists Slashdot in his blogroll as a "Big Media" site. I guess we geeks have arrived now!
Bill Gates is the richest man on the planet and slashdot is recognized as part of the media establishment, who would've predicted that 20 years ago?posted by David 9/17/2002 07:07:00 PM

Monday, September 16, 2002

OK, so I'm going to go back and add links to the last weeks posts, and thereby turn this into a full-fledged blog, otherwise, as pointed out by Instapundit, its just a pixelated op-ed page.posted by David 9/16/2002 09:01:00 PM